Volkswagen do Brasil: Driving Strategy with the Balanced Scorecard

Index: 1. What challenges does Thomas Schmall face upon becoming CEO of Volkswagen do Brasil (VWB)? 2. Describe VWB´s new strategy 3. What are the benefits from having all employees understand the strategy? 4. How does the strategy map and Balanced Scorecard help Schmall and Senn implement the new strategy? 5. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Scorecard and its implementation? 6. What other actions did VWB take to support strategy implementation? 7. How can Schmall and his team use the scorecard to deal with the challenges faced by company in January 2009?

1. What challenges does Thomas Schmall face upon becoming CEO of
The last objective that the executive committee had to cope with was changing VWB´s bureaucratic and slow moving company culture. Therefore they had to build new relationships with key stakeholders: employees, suppliers and dealers.

3. What are the benefits from having all employees understand the strategy? When employees hear the word change from their supervisor their response or thoughts won´t be positive in most cases. This is because every human being gets comfortable and used to a certain routine. Even if this change might help employees it´s from the utmost importance of supervisors to point this out in a detailed and clear manner. This is even more important in the particular situation that VWB´s executives had been. VWB generated losses consecutively from 1998 to 2006 and employees lived under the threat German headquarters would shut down the entire operations in Brazil. Therefore top and middle management had to prioritize communication within the whole company that employees didn´t get the wrong impression, that this undertaking is only a headcount for reductions. Another positive aspect of a clear